Dear Parents and Carers,

Our Year 6 students will be performing their production of ‘Finding Nemo Junior’ on Thursday 5th September. All students from Prep to Year 5 will be attending a matinee performance with an evening show open to families and friends. We are very excited to support our dedicated students and staff who have prepared a wonderful evening for us.

The evening show is being held at the Southern Peninsula Arts Centre at 7pm. Tickets are available on TryBooking; $15 Adults and $5 Children. Please contact the office for more information.

Father’s Day and Special Persons stall

Yesterday, our students visited our annual Father’s and Special Person’s Day stall to buy a small gift of appreciation. It was terrific to see the smiling faces of children as they chose something for a special person in their life. We are very thankful for the support of our parent volunteers; Despina Polatidis, Emma Prossor, Martha Rand, Leanna Smith, Cassey Penglis, Narelle Hollway, Caragh Murna, Thea Smith.

We wish our dads, grandads, uncles and other special people in the lives of our children, all the best for Father’s Day on Sunday.

Trivia Night

A reminder that our Trivia Night is on Saturday 14 September in the Hall. There are spaces available, so please call through to the office to book tickets if you are able to join in the fun!

School Saving Bonus

In Term 4, 2024, families with a child enrolled in a government school from Prep to Year 12 in 2025 will receive the one-off $400 School Saving Bonus. The $400 School Saving Bonus provides families with support for education-related costs, such as school activities and/or school uniforms and textbooks. The School Saving Bonus is not available for full-fee international students, home schooled students, TAFE students and students attending kindergarten in 2025.

Actions for parents and carers

Before 18 October 2024, the Department of Education is asking parents and carers to:

• Complete enrolment

If your child, or children are changing government school for Term 1 2025, or starting Prep or Year 7 in 2025, please complete enrolment.

• Check your contact information

Ensure your email address and phone number is up to date with the school. You can check this information by contacting us directly. We need to ensure your contact information is up to date as the Department of Education will email you twice – once in October, to verify your email address and again in November, with your $400 School Saving Bonus.

Please check your junk mail regularly to make sure you do not miss an important email.

To learn more about the School Saving Bonus, please visit the website: https://www.vic.gov.au/school-saving-bonus

Oaks Day 2024

Save the Date! Our Oaks Day major fundraising event is being held at ‘The National’ Cape Schanck on Thursday 7th November.

We look forward to hosting our extended school community for another fabulous day out. Event and booking details to be shared soon!! Spread the word and start gathering a table in support of our school.

Online Parent Opinion Survey – Your feedback is important to us.

A reminder that the Parent/Caregiver/ Guardian Opinion Survey is an annual survey offered by the Department of Education that is designed to assist schools in gaining an understanding of families’ perceptions of school climate, student behaviour, and student engagement.

The survey has been extended to Friday 20 September 2024. Login details were resent via compass earlier this week. Please contact the office if you would like support with this.

Snow Camp 2024

Year 6 Thursday Kitchen Garden Fun & Market

On Thursday’s, Year 6 students have begun harvesting and cooking with our fresh produce from the schools veggie garden. Lou and the team cooked a tasty pesto pasta this week, it was sold after school outside the Year 6 rooms. If you are around on Thursday afternoons, listen out for any announcements about what might be on offer after school.

Thank you to wonderful Lou, the students have absolutely loved these afternoons so far!

Year Six Quantum Excursion

The Year Six students went on an excursion to Quantum Victoria, a specialist Science and Mathematics Centre at Charles La Trobe P-12 College on Monday. Students in 6A participated in Minecraft – The STEM & Sustainable Practices of the First Nations People of Victoria, while 6B participated in Lego Robotics. The students will go back to Quantum later in the year to participate in the alternate activity.

STEM – Prep 

The Preps are having a blast and becoming confident to use a desktop computer in STEM this term. Thank you to the Year 6 buddies and Year 4 students who are supporting the Preps to use the mouse, learn to left and right-click, and type on the keyboard. The Preps have loved drawing pixel art, challenging themselves in coding puzzles, and drawing flip book style animations. 

Year One Reading is Magic!
On Monday morning, in the week prior to Book Week, the Year ones took off in the Boneo Bus for their first of two adventurous excursions. The children were singing and there was a buzz of elated chatter.
Pieta the librarian welcomed the excited students and settled them for story-time, the theme; Reading is Magic, Picture Book category for the annual CBCA book awards. First they read ‘Duck & Bear are Friends’ by Sue deGennaro. Then the children listened to ‘Concrete Garden’ by Bob Graham.
After the final pages were finished they responded to the stories with songs using scarves to express themselves. They particularly liked the popcorn song, scrunching the scarves into tiny ‘corn kernels’ then cracking them open as popping corn!
Once storytelling was done, the students were free to explore the shelves, seeking stories that spoke to their imagination and sparked their curiosity. Borrowing books to bring back to Boneo was a fun way to close the first chapter of our series of library excursions to explore our Inquiry unit this term, ‘Our Community’.
Up on our return to school, we enjoyed reading the borrowed books in the glorious sunshine of our sensory garden, both independently and with a buddy.
This Wednesday was the second Library visit, during which the children listened to a story about a special library book waiting to be chosen by the right reader. We coloured in a three panel comic showing the cycle of borrow, read, and return. Children enjoyed watching their books travel up the conveyor belt for sorting after posting them through the returns slot. One group browsed and carefully selected their book for borrowing while the other eagerly participated in a ‘Bee Bots’ workshop with Pieta the librarian. 
Soon students will return to the library with their families to bring back their borrowed books and hopefully keep up the connection with this wonderful community space ‘Our Library’!

Fairy Beach
During Book Week Year 1 students had the privilege of previewing the now published book ‘Fairy Beach’, written by local author Sheila Knaggs. They listened with rapt attention to the author read her magical tale about what happens ‘when the sun sets and the crowds disappear’ and all the fairies and sprites come out to frolic on the sands. The children responded to the book creatively, making little peg fairies, writing wishes for the fairy post, weaving wool & twig wands and writing book reviews for CBCA shortlisted picture books. What a wonderful way to explore the theme ‘Reading is Magic’! Many thanks to Sheila for sharing this special story with us!